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As you know, your Resonate team is dedicated to “helping clients create best outcomes during life’s most difficult times.” The aging process often creates “difficult times” within families.

We have found that proactive, skilled facilitation of “what if situations” provides time for thoughtful discussion and creates compassionate solutions to which everyone agrees in advance. Then, “when the time comes,” there is a plan to implement.

We welcome the opportunity to begin the conversation with you and your family.

Money… for many of us….is a complex, controversial and sometimes competitive topic. While each generation has its distinct challenges, money can also be the number one stressor for individuals, couples, and families.

In this blog, I explain how each generation relates to money, how money stresses the generations, and offer solutions to the crushing stress factor.

Let’s begin with the World War II Generation or those born between the years of 1925 and 1942.

For many in this generation, also called “The Silent Generation”, money was associated with the deep scars of scarcity created by the Great Depression. Therefore, the emphasis was on saving and always spending less than they earned. This generation was largely content with keeping one house for as long as possible and keeping cars and other possessions until they wore out. The primary money motivator for the WW II Generation was to replace scarcity with “having enough” or sufficiency.

Fidelity Investments recently published the results from the “2016 Family and Finance Study”.

Here are the key findings:
While adult children are willing to help their parents as they age, four in ten families disagree on the roles and responsibilities children should assume.

For example: 93% of parents state is it unacceptable for them to be financially dependent on their children, but only 30% of the adult children feel the same way.

Four in ten families disagree on the roles children will play as parents age in terms of caregiving, advocates, financial power of attorney and executor (trix) of the estate.

67% of families disagree about the appropriate time to initiate a conversation about finances.

Additionally, most families avoid talking about retirement living expenses, health, and long-term care expenses and content and location of estate documents.

This is exactly why Resonate created a “partner” consulting company named Connect-Gens that offers “Purposeful Planning: Conversations Beyond the Balance Sheet”. We understand that initiating this conversation can be difficult. We understand the content is often very emotional, and that the direction of the conversation is unpredictable. Since most people choose to avoid that which we either cannot control or represents the unknown, families do not engage in these essential conversations.

The longer I am in this business, the more opportunity I have to see the results of our thinking and work manifest into clients enjoying a well-planned retirement. I also am privileged to share in the sacred parts of life transitions and the passing on of a treasured legacy.

We regularly talk with our clients about the two legacies we all create…. One is the legacy we live each day and the second is the cumulative result of the daily Living Legacy wrapped up in our Leaving Legacy.

This writing by Wayne Mueller beautifully describes the process we are grateful to share with our clients and their families. (Excerpted from A Life of Being, Having and Doing Enough by Wayne Muller)

We make only one choice.

Throughout our lives, we do only one thing- again and again, moment by moment, year after year. It is how we live our days, and it is how we shape our lives.

The choice is this: What is the next right thing for us to do? Where, in this moment, shall we choose to place our time and attention? Do we stay or move, speak or keep silent, attend to this person, that task, move in this or that direction?

Recently we’ve had a significant number of questions from clients regarding inherited IRA’s for non-spouse heirs.

Here are some of the common pitfalls that sadly trap the unaware:

Not properly dividing the IRA among the heirs. For example, if the account is not split, the age of the oldest beneficiary will be used to calculate the Required Minimum Distributions (RMD’s). This shortens the number of years the money can grow tax-deferred.

Naming a trust as the beneficiary of an IRA requires special communication with the IRS by October 31 of the year following the year the owner died. Otherwise the trust is considered a non-designated beneficiary which may trigger payout of the entire IRA sooner than planned.

While Roth owners never have to take distributions, non-spouse beneficiaries must take distributions.

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Advisory Disclosure:

Advisory services may only be offered by Investment Adviser Representatives in connection with an appropriate ValMark Advisers, Inc. advisory services agreement and Disclosure Brochure (Form ADV Part II, as provided).